The basic tenets of almost all faiths are similar, even if the larger message is completely different...?

There is only God. No such thing as true or false God.

Religion serves a duel purpose when it associates moral and ethical values along with spiritual ideas.

Religion covers moral values because it makes it easy for a lay man's understanding of what should be done and what is not.

Sad it may sound a lot of people avoid stealing, killing and such things to avoid going to hell or suffer in next birth.

It also gives a kind of psychological comfort to victims , that the sad things done to them will not get unpunished and some higher being is looking after them.

Purpose of religion is to help people in finding inner peace and contentment. And moral values help this purpose.

"God sleeps in the rocks," proclaims the Indian scriptures, "dreams in the plants, stirs toward wakefulness in the animals, and in mankind is awake to his own ego individuality." In the enlightened stage, finally, he awakens to the full reality of who he truly is, in His infinite Self.

The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature (both) external and internal. "This can be done either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy (by one or more) and be free".

Each man had to work out his own salvation and that everyone's own spiritual experience is vital to the attainment of the ultimate state of the soul's evolution. A blind obedience to authority is the surest prescription for spiritual paralysis.

Dogmatism, on the other hand, stifles mental elasticity and turns people into "psychological antiques."

When religion becomes organized, man ceases to be free. For it is not God that is worshipped but the group or the authority that claims to speak in his name. Thus, it becomes a kind of social idolatry.

Religion is an experience. To think that any human being or institution has the monopoly of God's truth is to commit the sin of pride.

Morality does not need God to exist. But belief existence of God of makes its enforcement easier.

Hindus were the neatest and environment friendly people till they were religious. Ancient India never threw garbage in a river. How could he?It was dwelling of God Varun . Trees can not be cut till those were dead. Because they also had souls.

Almost all the animals are sacred in form or other. West only knows about cow. But You will get in trouble in Vishnoi Hindus if you kill a Chinkara (a kind of dear) or even any tree for that matter. Peacock, snake, monkey, lion, ....

everything ancients found worth preserving they associated it with religion. It was easier to enforce preservation of nature on regious grounds than preaching ecology to lay man.

Reacting with violence is a basic tendency and people tend to define morality as suits them.

To kill one's wife to save honour has been very acceptable moral behaviour in western world, even as the commandements were telling them "not to kill".

Personally I hate the end of the Three Musketiers" . I liked it till nobody tried to look moral. The way they get the "evil mi lady" executed in the end was more hypocritical. All of them were following double standards. " I would have preffered a simple killing, even a cold blodded one, instead of pretended righteousness preaching ambigous morality.

Point is "moral" also differ according to out thinking.

Would you suggest those "moral" values all of us not agree upon, should be discarded altogether?

Not every society agrees with the ideals set forth in the Ten Commandments. One missionary was frustrated to find that the tribe he was living with thought Judas was the hero when he betrayed Jesus, because he had infiltrated the inner circle. They valued cunning and deceit as admirable qualities. It wasn't until a battle between two tribes broke out and one leader gave his son to the other leader to raise--a "peace child" that ensured the fighting would stop--that the missionary found something that would help the people relate to the idea of sacrifice.

Despite that exception, I do agree that most cultures hold similar values. A Christian would view this as evidence that God has set himself in the hearts of people. If we agree that there is some moral standard of what is right and wrong, where do we get that idea? How would we measure what is right if there were no ultimate and absolute right to compare it to?

The basic tenants of almost all faiths are similar, but one important difference, and this makes all the difference in the world: religion is usually people reaching out to a god or gods, trying to find meaning and asking for help. Christianity is God reaching down to all people, offering sacrifice and salvation even though aware many would not accept such a gift. I can be a moral person without God, but all my good deeds are worth nothing compared to what Christ has done. Even if I could, as a moral person, offer my life as a sacrifice so that you might live here on Earth a little while longer, only Christ died and rose so that you might live forever.

In the Qur'an, God says that he revealed many many prophets throughout the history of time to many many different nations. Some of these prophets are mentioned in holy books, some are not. The message of each prophet was either changed or corrupted somehow. Muhammad was the last messenger and after him the world will end and we will be held accountable for our actions on this Earth. Therefore, its POSSIBLE that all faiths share the same basic tenets because all the Prophets came from the same God.

Morality can not exist without God. Because the human spirit needs something to strive for. If there is no God, there is not hereafter, there is no care. We'd all be sitting around smoking blunts, meeting hookers and creating all sorts of mischief. Man's nature is to please him/herself. God is our Creator -- without him, we have no purpose but to expire. I often wonder how lonely and pointless atheists must feel.

Morality can exist without religion. Morality comes from social structure and what everyone in a particular sociological group deems what is acceptable and what is not. People do not need religious text to tell them what is wrong and what is right... society has laws for that. Aside from which, you can't tell me those tribes which exist in places such as the Amazon River basin, tribes which have never seen things like modern world religions, don't have morals they live by. Most of those small tribes actually have very intricate moral structures.

The Ten Commandments are rules for life. They are not "basic tents."

Those, which I speak of are as follows.

We are more than just flesh

There is much more to this universe than we can imagine

The Universe was Created

Be good to one another

Every human comes pre programmed with abilities to discern between what is right and what is wrong. These are gifts from Creator. Every human comes with a basic knowledge of there being something more. It is inside. Many just choose to muddle this knowledge with either religiosity or a repulsion away from that which has enslaved many minds.

Had not God created the innate morality of mankind in the first place, then it would not have existed at all. The 10 commandments did not create the morality - it reinforced it.

I thank God for you, wrathpuppet :) You are a voice of reason in an ocean of simple-mindedness...

I agree wholeheartedly with you. The vast majority of animals refrain from stealing and killing each other - I don't think you can attribute that to the Ten Commandments and/or God.

heres how it works. christians (or oythers of any religion, but mainly christians) assume that morality originates from their god and their bible. thats what many claim.

i, as an atheist, beleive that morality comes from a society that has established laws..morality is simply a willingness to act within those laws.

morality exists without the need of a god because peopel wish to live in a society where people dont get killed or raped or shot or beat up.

christrians (for example) assume that since morality comes from their bible...then they must be the most morale people in the world, anyoe else who is not of their religion or god is immoral since, like bush said, if youre not with them...youre against them.

morality comes from society, whats in the bible is simply that but on paper and in a silly little story. like how we got here and what our purpose i the origins or morality were credited to god.

so "one step above cave-man" forefathers didnt know where it came from....so they just said god did it...god created it...whatever...make sense?

I'm with you on that. Those who only behave morally because they fear punishment from God are operating on a lower level of moral development (see Kohlberg, the psychologist) than those who behave morally because of a universal human imperative to do so.

A highly developed code of behavior, with no moral development, is called sociopathic...no offense Geppetto...but we are born savage carnivores, and would eat our parents if we were born bigger, with teeth. Morality comes from without, usually from parents. But they had to get inspiration from somewhere too. If you trace the path of inspiration back far enough, you'll come to the first person we call human. (not homo sapien, they were already here) Call him Adam, for the lack of a better name...